Many many falls as a young'un on my BMX. Normally while playing around over jumps and the like, nearly always with an audience necessitating in the "I'm fine, it's all good" act.

My two worst falls were both while doing my paper round as a kid (does that really count as commuting?). The first was on my BMX coming down a big hill at dusk, me and a friend were heading down the pavement with him in front, my breaks at the time was my right foot jammed sideways into the top of the rear triangle pressing on the tire... We saw a car pulling out of the carpark in front of the corner shops, he had time to get around the front of it, I misjudged it and ended up ramming my foot desperately down on the tire in attempt to skid to a stop. I skidded sideways and hit the passenger side wing, hard, hard enough to leave a good sized dent in it. Needless to say I went down hard and when the driver got out to see if I was ok I tried the "I'm fine, it's all good" act, tried to stand and collapsed straight back down as the thigh wouldn't hold me. Luckily nothing was broken, just deeply bruised and I was able to lean on my bike to walk home and the driver was more concerned about me than her car, so it was good on that front too.

The second was in the rain, I'd just flown down a big hill (different to the first), it was a quieter road so I was on the road this time, when I got to the bottom I realised I was going way too fast to do my normal low sweep around the corner, especially as the road was soaked. Sadly I realised this as I was already traveling sideways along the tarmac on my elbow. I got up and checked my arm, there was a bit of road rash but nothing major, got back on my bike and carried on my round, but when I got to my first house on that road, mere metres from the fall, I noticed blood on the newspaper I was about to post through the door, my entire right forearm and hand were red with blood. I got to a friends house whose Mother was a nurse and she gave it a quick clean and a bandage. After completing my paper round my Nan took me to the hospital to get it cleaned properly. It turned out the reason the 'bit of road rash' had bled so profusely was because it was in fact two holes just below my elbow about 2cm deep that were packed with gravel flush to the skin. That wasn't a pleasant experience getting them cleaned out with saline solution.

I still have two impressive scars there now after about 12 years.

No falls since I got back into riding as an adult though, though I've only been riding regularly for the last month or so.